I shouldn't have to load a stupid flash control in order to see it. There should be an option to access a straight html web site. I've tried 2 different browsers and both have locked up trying to navigate their bloody site!!! Taking 2 minutes to navigate from one page to another is just simply unacceptable. I mean seriously, for such a large company, get a freaking clue!!!

I love Specialized products but their web site plain sucks from a usability/performance point of view. I,ve typed this message, logged into BF and posted all in the time it takes for me to click a link and wait for the next page. And I'm still waiting...

It seems that a lot of sites are going Flash instead of just using web pages. This really sucks when I hit SRAM's site to look up something, and the only real way to print a spec on something is to mash a screenshot, crop it in MSpaint, then store that as a bitmap.

Web designers need to realize that Flash is great for demos and such, but for meat and potatoes pages for support topics and specifications, those should be in regular HTML so any browser, be it an AIX box running lynx from a 3151, a Windows Mobile device running PIE or Opera, or a regular PC with Flash enabled can access the information without issue. Web designers also need a way to gracefully fail back to HTML if a machine can't or won't display Flash.

Marketing people and graphic designers are more interested in what looks cool than usability. Even the web guy is often lacking in this area. The only ones really interested in usability are the end users, and they have no say in the matter!

The worst web sites are the ones for fashion designers and other designers. They are all beautiful, they all use Flash and they all suck.

Almost all flash implementations suck. Anyone who designs a flash site that is 800x600 with 10 point font obviously has no clue about design. I have decent vision, but work about 10 hours a day on my computer, I use large fonts in my browser and run a high resolution monitor. I shouldn't have to get out of my chair and put my freaking face to the screen to navigate a website.

Yeah and I shouldn't have to allow cookies to see it. Wow, this is how bad the Specialized site is:

I turned off cookies in my browser a while back, and I only allow cookies on sites where I log in for mail, purchases, forums, etc. I know I'm in the minority here, but in the several months since I changed the configuration I think I've only ever encountered one other site that wouldn't let me browse without turning on my cookies. I know they won't change this for me, I'm just one lost customer. There are a lot of good brands out there, I don't need them either.

I shouldn't have to load a stupid flash control in order to see it. There should be an option to access a straight html web site. I've tried 2 different browsers and both have locked up trying to navigate their bloody site!!! Taking 2 minutes to navigate from one page to another is just simply unacceptable. I mean seriously, for such a large company, get a freaking clue!!!

I love Specialized products but their web site plain sucks from a usability/performance point of view. I,ve typed this message, logged into BF and posted all in the time it takes for me to click a link and wait for the next page. And I'm still waiting...

o.k rant off

OK FLASH CRIERS:
In between the alligator tears, let's take a moment to realize that there is hardly any flash on their site. Just the bit that loads on the home page highlighting whatever hot product they want to talk about. The nav is plain vanilla html, so are the product descriptions, contact page, photos of bikes, hell I had to work my ass off to find flash on that site. You can navigate to any page on that site without loading the big mvie at the home page, the nav loads first before anything else (look upper left, doh!) so there is exactly zero waiting to be blamed on the flash blurb.

What does it all mean? At some point in the past, you and your dial-up connection were forced to wait for ten minutes while some amateur web designer made you wait for his crappy intro to load. More than likely, you were looking for free porn or going to an online gaming clan's site, so you deserved what you got anyways. Sorry about the scars for life.

Well, this is 2008, refrigerators are no longer called ice boxes (go ahead, plug yours in, you're gonna love it), television is in color now, movies have dialog, and websites have this cool technology that lets things move on the page (called flash). If you are in the three percent of people out there who are still railing against that flash intro you were forced to watch on your 286 back in 1996 (it probably featured that goddamn dancing banana) and refuse to install the flash player (a device that makes the web look like something other than ****), then by all means knock yourself out. The general idea in the web design world is that the 3% who refuse to install the player can shine it. ("shine it" is an industry term).

I shouldn't have to load a stupid flash control in order to see it. There should be an option to access a straight html web site. I've tried 2 different browsers and both have locked up trying to navigate their bloody site!!! Taking 2 minutes to navigate from one page to another is just simply unacceptable. I mean seriously, for such a large company, get a freaking clue!!!

I love Specialized products but their web site plain sucks from a usability/performance point of view. I,ve typed this message, logged into BF and posted all in the time it takes for me to click a link and wait for the next page. And I'm still waiting...

o.k rant off

Go over to mtbr.com on the Specialized section and post this rant. Their webmaster reads them and generally responds.

half the friggin bike companies use Flash only sites now.
sucks if you're on dialup or refuse to use Flash.
Also, LOOK's site sucks, and has little to NO archived info on obsolete products, and Shimano just nixed their product tech docs archives.. which now puts them in the suck catagory too.
Kestrel requires Flash, as does Campy, and several others. all suck.